Crazy Grad. School Stories

Not so long ago, I had a chance to meet and listen to a talk from Jorge Cham, the created of PhdComics.  He gave a hilarious talk about his comic strip, suffering through graduate school, and about how to deal with grad. school.

At the talk, I asked him what the craziest grad. student story of suffering or pain was that he had heard during his touring and talks.  He said that amongst the worst he ever heard were about students that went into their final thesis defense without a presentation or slides.

So I began to think of the best "grad. school" story I've heard.  Here's the one I could think of.  It's not about research or grad. school suffering, but it's still a funny story none the less.

My friend was TAing the CS class for business students.  It's the class where you teach Excel, Powerpoint, and some introductory programming in Visual Basic.  Since the class is all business students, and the majority of them do not intend to ever look at code in their life, the programming assignments are not liked.


So he tells me there is a website called hireacoder.com, where you can find programming contract work.  While the website is mostly for small contract work (i.e. design this aspect of a website for me) a fair amount of the contract work posted is apparently homework assignments from students.  While most of the people posting contracts are smart enough to anonymize the assignment, one was not and listed the class name and school in the contract (apparently cut & pasting it from the assignment).

A good samaritan found the class online and e-mailed the Professor and TAs about the cheater.  At first, the Professor said she was irate, but eventually got over it, realizing there was nothing she could do to catch the culprit.  After all, how were you going to catch the cheater out of a class for several hundred students.

Weeks later while grading the assignments, one of the TAs found a very special submission where "Written by Joe Smith @ Hire A Coder" was at the top of the comments.  Clearly, the student didn't even bother to look through the code they had bought and blindly turned it in.

When questioning the student, the Professor and TAs asked how much they paid for the assignment to be done.  The student said about $50 (late 1990s money).  Which the Professor replied, "There are senior CS students that would have done that for a slice of pizza.  So not only did you fail my class, you've also failed finance."

"The Internship" - Nerdy Stereotypes and Hollywood Silliness

I saw "The Internship" last night.  I wasn't too excited to see the movie, but wanted to see it to see how Hollywood might portray Silicon Valley, engineers, and the tech industry as a whole.

SPOILERS BELOW
SPOILERS BELOW
SPOILERS BELOW

First off, the movie didn't portray software engineers as complete losers, which is pretty good.  Atleast two characters, Neha and Stuart, are portrayed relatively well.  They are smart kids with good social skills.  The only negatives about them are normal "growing up" issues (i.e. communicating better).

However several characters are portrayed with the normal nerdy stereotypes.  Yo-yo, which they could have given a far more normal name, was home schooled his entire life, is a mama's boy, and punishes himself by pulling an eyebrow hair whenever he performs poorly.  "Headphones" (that's the name given on IMDB) is the stereotyped overweight computer genius that has no social skills.  He in fact states that he is uncomfortable around people.

Overall, it's pretty balanced.  There are some nerds and some normal kids, far better than the stereotyped portrayal of engineers.

While the portrayal of the characters was hit and miss, I couldn't help but laugh at the portrayal of many of the aspects of the actual job/work.  Here's the ones I could remember.

• In the movie groups of five interns are created and the teams are put into a battle royale of sorts against each other.  I don't know of any company in the tech industry that does such a battle.  In reality, interns are put to task on actual work.
• The team that wins the battle royale is guaranteed full time jobs at Google and everyone else isn't.  I find it humorous that the movie portrays Google as only having 5 full-time job openings.
• In one scene Yo-yo, Stuart, and Neha are having a heart to heart discussion about how they really need to win this contest because they really need the job at Google.  In reality, if you're smart enough to get an engineering internship at Google, you shouldn't have a problem finding a job in the tech industry.
• Despite skill levels and backgrounds being so different, apparently all interns are thrown into the same projects.  In reality, interns of different skill levels (or at a minimum, different backgrounds) would have different projects to work on.
• During one scene the intern team is required to "make a sale", however instead of trying to sell ads, they appear to be trying to sell real estate.

Junior High Career Options

Not so long ago, I somehow recalled my "What you should do for a career" test I took when I was in junior high.  These were the career options the test gave me.

Career Option #1: Puppeteer

Maybe I could have been the next Kevin Clash (puppeteer for Elmo) or Caroll Spinney (puppeteer for Big Bird/Oscar the Grouch), but fate would make me a programmer instead.  I assume my then interest in drawing comic books (i.e. liking art) and my parents forcing me to play piano (i.e. music) lead to the test giving me this result.

Career Option #2: Ferry Boat Captain

This isn't a joke, it literally said "Ferry Boat Captain".  I have no idea why this was given to me.  My best guess is b/c I like to fish.

Career Option #3: Computer Person

I can't remember if the test gave me Computer Engineer or Software Engineer or Computer Tech or Information Technology or some other random random tech position, but option #3 was at least pretty close.

Duck Tales on the NES

Recently I learned that the classic NES game Duck Tales was getting an HD remake for modern systems.  Here's the trailer:




It's considered one of the best games on the NES, placing at #10 on IGN's top 100 NES games of all time.  The game had incredible non-linear level design, secrets to discover all over the place, and (what many consider) some of the best music on the NES.

I was so fond of this game, I reached the point that I knew all of it's secrets.  I knew the game well enough I even got my high score printed in Nintendo Power!  (This is sometime in 1990, when I was 10-11).

However, it's funny looking back on the game as an adult.

(Spoiler Alert - telling game plots if you care)

The plot of the game is that you control Uncle Scrooge as he wanders the world looking for treasure to help him keep his hold as the world's richest Duck.

I think in today's post-financial crisis and post-occupy movements, having the protagonist of a children's game look like a greedy CEO is something that most video game/cartoon creators would likely pass over in today's social climate.

In addition, Uncle Scrooge isn't really going around the world looking for long lost treasure.  He goes around the world STEALING treasure.  There is one level in particular where he steals the great treasure from a ground of underground "mole" people.

I can't help but laugh thinking of a really modern review of the game, "Help Uncle Scrooge wander the world attacking indigenous people to steal their cultural treasures."

Les Misérables - Too Much Singing!

So I recently saw Les Misérables.  It was the first time I ever saw it in movie form or otherwise.  My immediate reaction after watching it was, "All they did was sing, there was no talking."  I'm used to musicals where it's half acting and half singing, and things just seemed out of whack in Les Misérables.

I wasn't sure if I was just imagining this, so I looked up the number of musical numbers in the following musicals. The musicals I selected are pretty much at random, whatever came to mind. I didn't bother to differentiate between orchestra only or singing numbers, b/c I haven't seen all of these.  I just counted the number of different items listed on Wikipedia.

Musical	Number of Musical Numbers
Les Misérables	50
Wicked	21
The Sound of Music	26
Phantom of the Opera	39
My Fair Lady	24
Cats	27
Chicago	21
The Book of Mormon	22
Grease	21
West Side Story	27
American Idiot	30

So I guess I wasn't imagining things, there are just way more musical numbers than the average musical.

Apple TV vs Xbox/Playstation

I saw this article, The Fall TV Lineup May Include Apple Dominating Gaming,  and wanted to comment, because I couldn't help but disagree.

The author makes the argument that an Apple TV would completely crush Xbox, PS3, Wii, etc.

Here are some of the arguments in the article:

Apple is going to dominate where their rivals cannot simply because of the support of small, third-party app developers.

That the Apple TV is already nearly powerful enough to run [games like Call of Duty]. Perhaps not the highest of the high end, but give it a year or two. That’s the thing: Apple will likely push yearly hardware (and software) updates for anything they do. Microsoft has not updated the Xbox in over 7 years. Huge mistake.

the audience for non-hardcore games when Apple opens up an Apple TV SDK will be much larger than the audience for the hardcore games.

Apple will not win this space by playing the game that Microsoft, Sony, and to some extent, Nintendo, are playing. They will win by changing the rules of the game. And that game is all about developers, developers, developers, developers.

I disagree with these based on one major theory:

The TV is not a casual entertainment device, it is a serious one.

People spend a lot of money on better sound, better definition TVs, etc. because they want a much higher quality experience when they sit down.

They pay a premium on cable, on video streaming, and movie disks (i.e. blue ray vs. DVD) simply for the privilege of experiencing this higher quality content.

On phones, people can play Angry Birds or Words With Friends in 5 minute increments, but I don't believe people do that on a TV.

This isn't to say there isn't a casual market for this.  After all, the Wii sold 100 million units.  There is a market for the casual, but is it one that can destroy the Xbox or Playstation?  I'm skeptical.  This is not a world where a Zynga can thrive, it is one where an Activision can thrive, where investing $50 million in the development of a game results in huge sales and profit.

Now, this isn't to say there won't be people that develop the $50 million dollar game for the Apple TV, I'm sure they will.  But will they develop it only for Apple TV or also for Xbox & Playstation?  If you're willing to put $50 million into the development of a game, I can't imagine it being for only one platform.

Baseball MVP and CY Young Voting Travesties

Awhile back in 2012 R.A. Dickey threw two one-hitters in a row.  He was the first player since Dave Stieb of the Toronto Blue Jays to do so.  When I was looking up Dave Stieb's history online, it made me sad.  Stieb should have gone down in history as one of the greatest pitchers of the 1980s, should have gotten his name written into history with some Cy Young awards, but due to lack of sabrmetric knowledge by Cy Young voters in the 1980s, Stieb will be largely forgotten by most baseball fans.

From 1981 to 1985 here is Dave Stieb's AL WAR, his rank in the AL for WAR, and how he placed in CY Young voting.

Year	WAR	AL Rank	CY Young Place
1981	4.3	2	N/A
1982	7.3	1	4th
1983	6.7	1	N/A
1984	7.6	1	7th
1985	6.5	2	7th

So from 1981-1985 Stieb was 1st or 2nd in AL WAR for pitchers every year.  He twice lead the league in innings pitched (was top 5 three other times), lead the league in ERA once (was top 5 three other times), was top 3 in strikeouts twice (top 10 three other times).  I could go on more.

For all that wonderful performance, the Cy Young voters decided to give him nothing better than a 4th place finish in 1982 and two 7th place finishes.  Two times, they didn't even bother to give him a single vote.  Cy Young voters were still too hung up on wins & losses.  That is a travesty.

Unfortunately for Stieb, if he had played in the 2010s things might be different.  By 2010, Felix Hernandez was able to win the Cy Young award despite having only a 13-12 record.  Voters were able to see his overall performance and look past David Price's 19-6 record and CC Sabathia's 21-7 record.

My subjective analysis is that with modern voters, Stieb would have easily won the Cy Young award in 1982 (beating out Pete Vuckovich and his 18-6 record), would have been top three in 1983 (close vote w/ Jack Morris and Lamarr Hoyt), been atleast top two in 1984 (would have still battled Willie Hernandez, but was the clear best starting pitcher), and probably would have beaten Bret Saberhagen for the Cy Young in 1985 (with a healthy challenge by Bert Blyleven).

At the minimum, this would have changed Stieb's legend and history.  A couple of Cy Young awards suddenly turn you from "star of an era" into "Hall of Fame candidate".  Stieb's injuries early in career probably hurt is Hall of Fame candidacy for good, but voters would have looked at him more seriously.

So that got me thinking, has this happened to anyone else recently?  I suddenly recalled the 1987 MVP vote in both the NL and AL.

Lets start with the NL in 1987, as it was the more famous controversy.  Despite all of the ballyhooing over how an MVP player needs to play on a playoff team or a winner, Andre Dawson won the MVP playing for the last place Chicago Cubs.  Yup, that's LAST PLACE.  Not 2nd place, or close to making the playoffs, or atleast having a .500 record, LAST PLACE. He won the MVP playing for a team that was 76-85.  My overwhelming assumption why he won is because he hit 49 home runs and had 137 RBIs ... which are big numbers.

On the other hand, Ozzie Smith, the Hall of Fame defensive wizard of the St. Louis Cardinals had his best offensive season of his career hitting .303 and driving in 75 runs.  He had a WAR of 6.2 to Dawson's 3.7.  Oh, and he also lead the Cardinals to a division title and a playoff appearance.  He was the runner up in the MVP voting in 1987.  Ozzie Smith split the MVP vote with his teammate Jack Clark, which probably cost him the award, but it is a travesty that Andre Dawson secured 11 of the 24 first place votes. (Oh, and Jack Clark had a WAR of 5.2 over Dawson's 3.7.)

On the AL side, George Bell won the MVP.  Why?  My assumption is it's because he hit 47 home runs and had 134 RBIs, which are again big numbers.  He did a little better than Dawson by having a 4.6 WAR.  However, he beat out Tigers great Alan Trammell for the MVP.  Trammell had an 8.0 WAR that year, second to Wade Boggs' 8.2.  He hit 28 home runs and had a .343 batting average.  Oh yeah, remember that thing about MVPs playing for winning teams?  The Tigers made it to the playoffs and the Blue Jays didn't.  Granted, the Blue Jays were just behind the Tigers in the pennant chase (2nd place finish w/ 96-66 record to Detroit's 98-64 record), so it's not as tragic as the NL MVP case.

One of the other reasons I view the 1987 AL MVP vote a travesty is how it could have changed perceptions for Alan Trammell.  Alan Trammell has regularly failed to secure enough votes to get into the Hall of Fame.  Allan Trammell unfortunately played in a time when Ozzie Smith and Cal Ripken Jr. (and for awhile Robin Yount) were setting new standards for shortstops, so he may have never been viewed as an elite shortstop during his era.  Somehow, that didn't affect Barry Larkin's election into the Hall of Fame, as he also had the problem of playing when Ozzie Smith and Cal Ripken Jr. were playing.

What are the differences between Trammell and Larkin?  Lets see

Allan Trammell career WAR - 67.1
Barry Larkin career WAR - 67.1

Allan Trammell Gold Gloves - 4
Barry Larkin Gold Gloves - 3

Allan Trammell All Star Teams - 6
Barry Larkin All Star Teams - 12

Allan Trammell Silver Slugger - 6
Barry Larkin Silver Slugger - 8

Allan Trammell MVPs - 0
Barry Larkin MVPs - 1

Now I don't know if Alan Trammell really deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, but I can't help but think that one MVP award made a difference for Barry Larkin.  Unfortunately, the lack of voting consistency and illogic in 1987 may have really hurt his chances.